Split is off?

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

By PETER CAR pcar@tnonline.com

Lehigh Valley Conference officials had a chance to meet last week to discuss the future of the league and some clarity is now coming into focus. The league met on Monday in an emergency meeting to discuss the Mountain Valley Conference invitation of 10 of the league's schools, while excluding Bethlehem Catholic and Central Catholic.

Principal's and athletic directors met last Wednesday as well in a regularly scheduled meeting and all indicators point to the LVC staying intact with all of its members.

Whitehall Principal and LVC President Chris Schiffert talked about the idea of expanding, but also keeping all members of the LVC together.

"We're essentially looking at a similar goal," Schiffert said. "We don't want to put ourselves in position to exclude anyone in our conference right now. We will explore the idea of expanding.'

An expansion committee was formed in the fall by LVC representatives and Schiffert said that he would like to have a meeting with interested MVC representatives in the coming weeks to discuss the matter.

Schiffert said that idea of expanding isn't something new and it appeared that it could gain some legs in the future, which wouldn't be a bad thing for the LVC, as well as the MVC, who will lose Lehighton in the 2014-2015 campaign to the Schuylkill League.

That will leave the MVC with six schools including, Stroudsburg, East Stroudsburg North, East Stroudsburg South, Pleasant Valley, Pocono Mountain East and Pocono Mountain West.

A conglomeration of conferences would also eliminate one more automatic bye in District 11 postseason competition, which is something that has been rumored as a topic of debate amongst LVC officials.

The bottom line from all this, as it appears, is that the LVC won't be taking up the MVC on their invitation and won't leave the Catholic schools behind.

What it also means, is that they will explore expanding the conference, which could include the members of the MVC or other schools.

Schiffert said that he has already spoken with MVC President Jeff Sodl on the matter and that discussions seemed positive.

"He was open to the idea of expanding," Schiffert said. "With him not having a chance to speak with all the members of the MVC, nobody can really say for sure how the idea will be welcomed, but I think he looked at it as a positive."